


Enough

by ShadowSelene (Shadowdianne)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-10-18 11:14:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17579786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowdianne/pseuds/ShadowSelene
Summary: Have you written anything about Cora’s death? Maybe Regina talking to Emma about it?Asked by godandmonsters1996 back at tumblr





	Enough

**Author's Note:**

> Set in: In some time pocket after “The Miller’s Daughter” [2X16]
> 
> As a side note here: No, I don’t like Cora. I also didn’t the cheap way in where they made her look good back at Storybrooke Hell arc. But I also think there is a LOT to unpack on Regina’s side about her. This scene tries to point that.
> 
> As another side note: Monsters asked me if I had ever written a scene like this one, apropos of an earlier conversation regarding the need to always find different approaches into a scene so I don’t get, you know, burn out of writing possible multiple variations of one single trope. The answer to the question is a resounding yes: I’ve written scenes with Regina talking about Cora’s death with Emma. But don’t ask me to find the links for that Xd I’m over 400 stories on A03. I have a good memory but not one that’s THAT good.

 

_If we lose this battle, we'll spend the rest of our short lives on our knees in front of them._

The words echoed on Regina’s mind as she walked outside the vault, Cora’s tomb a presence she could feel lurking on ever corner and wall as she exited to the cold exterior of the cemetery. Still, the disembodied voice of her mother was nothing but a whisper, a call to hate that felt hot on her chest as she wrapped her arms around her, eyes squinting at the golden light that filled the place with an eerie sense of calmness. The older woman had said the words with such conviction that she now could only close her eyes and breathe slowly; her newly returned magic sizzling inside of her in a way she was still becoming accustomed to.

Clutching her hands, turning them into fists before releasing them, lowering her arms at both sides of her body, the brunette opened her eyes once more, the sound of dead leaves crunching beneath her feet quickly becoming the only thing she focused on. A sound that grounded her for a moment, mere meters away from the body of her mother’s. The thought itself felt surreal. She, after all, had already seen Cora’s body once. Had already grieved her loss, the bittersweet victory she had felt in that moment now completely eradicated as she remembered the last look the older woman had given her; full of something that she had never seen on her eyes before. A look, a feeling, she had been vaguely aware she had tried to reach ever since she had been a little girl, unaware of the pain, the fear, the woman would later on impart her as soon as she begun to dream on a different life, a different path, than the one Cora had prewritten for her before she had been born.

Her musings were cut short by the sudden realization her steps had been suddenly doubled, a presence standing just an inch away from the corner of her eyes. A silhouette owning a similar and yet different magic, the power much more chaotic than hers; raw and untrained.

“What are you doing here?” Her voice rose like a gust of wind, her skin prickling with magic and the need for revenge. A feeling she knew well, far too well in fact.

The anger was, however, quickly replaced by tiredness and it was precisely that what didn’t make her react when Emma stepped into view, blonde locks framing her face, light brown leather jacket almost getting lost on the ochres and browns that peppered Regina’s vision. The blonde’s pale cheeks were slightly rosy-tinted, teeth peeking through slightly parted eyes and Regina realized that only once before she had seen her look so sheepish. Something she chided herself for noticing as she locked her shoulders, the fabric of the blazer she wore shifting just enough as jet another rush of power run through her veins, sparks breaking her skin.

Emma, however, stupid, stupid Emma, didn’t seem all that worried about the magic Regina could feel tinting everything around her in a purple hue. Or the obvious anger that now colored her stance. Shrugging herself, walking closer to Regina while leaving the entrance to the mausoleum at her left, she tilted her head, hair obscuring her face for a moment before she rose her eyes once more. The green that beckoned Regina was darker than usual though and the brunette found herself blinking at the shift.

“I wanted to talk to you.”

The answer was said in a soft tone, not shy but cautious, doubtful even as if Emma couldn’t truly know why or how she had ended up there, in front of her. A thought that made Regina scoff, the phantom-like feeling of Emma’s arms around her back at Gold’s shop returning to her in full force.

“I guess I should be grateful then, that you want to grace me with your presence.”

It came out cold, bitter; a breach between the personality she had and the one she had honed over her years on the throne. A woman, she was quickly coming to realize, that she wasn’t anymore. Despite her wish sometimes to be her, to be as ruthless as she had been if that could mean that there would be no remorse coming from within her if she even dared to kill the woman in front of her, or the woman that was probably happily seated with her husband, not giving a second thought to the life she had stolen from her.

Emma flinched at the words but remained frozen as Regina scoffed a second time, a mirthless chuckle bubbling on her lips until she was unable to stop it anymore. The sound of her laughter echoed between the trees, curling around the tombs that could be distinguished from where they both were, the tombstones a dot of gray on the grass.

“If you have come to ensure I’m not about to come up with another curse tell your parents…”

“I didn’t come for that.”

This time the voice was less soft, surer, louder, and Regina froze mid-sentence, a memory of a nightmare returning to her. A nightmare in where Emma, the mental image she had of her, had looked at her with that blazing self-righteousness Regina wanted to strip Snow from. Little by little, inch by inch, muscle by muscle. Turning so instead of sideways she could address the blonde fully, Regina felt her anger brim under the surface once more, the scent of ozone filling her nostrils as her magic growled inside of her, demanding retribution in the only way she had been trained to.

“Then what did you come for?”

It was a stupid question, the answer obvious of course. As much as the blonde could say she hadn’t been sent to check if the Evil Queen wasn’t about to kill the woman who, despite all her speeches about hope and second chances, had plotted against the woman that now laid a few meters away from both of them, she knew the Charmings better than anyone else. She had spent her whole adult life being the one who plotted, who moved strings, who maimed, who destroyed.

Feeling tiredness beginning to creep up on her, crawling from her legs to her chest, the brunette could sense the momentary rage leaving her body just in the same way, leaving her defenseless, empty, as Emma sighed deeply before closing the distance that separated them in a few strides.

“To ask how you were.” Her reply burnt hot against Regina’s skin, who moved backwards, narrowing her eyes and gaping for a moment at the sheer audacity of the woman in front of her.

“You don’t get to ask that.” She bit back, and she could see the fire on Emma’s eyes burning hotter, shoulders tensing and muscles on her neck trembling. For a moment, a second, she almost seemed about to let that rage loose and Regina almost felt relieved at that, drunk on that, on the redirected rage. She could work with anger after all, she could let herself be drowned on it, let it consume her. For a moment she almost wanted the blonde to act on it, to hit her, try to, just like she had done a few weeks ago, Graham in the middle of something the poor man hadn’t even begun to comprehend. Ultimately, however, Emma’s fists remained on her pockets and Regina felt the sudden surge of strength leave her once more, leaving her feeling brittle in a way she truly didn’t comprehend.

Lowering her head, she almost -but not really- missed Emma’s next words, words that were said with such conviction that she wanted to fall for them, believe on them. Even if it wasn’t possible.

“I’m sorry.” The blonde said, and Regina needed to swallow back a sob, her usual perfect façade crackling under Emma’s gaze. “I’m sorry.” The blonde repeated, regaining the lost distance in a slower way. “I don’t understand….” She stopped herself, licking her lips before trying again. “I know there is a lot of things I still need to learn. But I’m sorry, I’m sorry of what happened.”

“You didn’t seem all that worried back at Gold’s.” It was a morose response, an easy one, and Regina knew it, but she didn’t have any more ire to inject on her words. Not now when she felt unsteady, open, in a way she didn’t know how to feel about. Feeling almost as if swaying, her head lightheaded, her magic coiled around her tired heart, she hugged her midsection once more. Her stupid, idiotic last protection. Mother would cackle at that, at the lack of magic, at the lack of anger, of magic, of pain. But she didn’t feel like inflicting pain, not when Cora’s last words had shaken her to the core, far too late.

Shagging her shoulders, Emma bite down on her lip though, not truly taking an advantage that Regina knew she would have back in another realm. A place that felt so detached that it was more of a dream now, a hallucination, than the place that should have been calling for her, in the middle of a forest that was almost but not quite, a perfect copy of that other one.

“Gold is Henry’s grandfather.” She spoke, a weak smile lifting her lips in a crooked way before she let out a soft sigh, one that didn’t quite feel like something the Emma that had tried to chop her tree down by spite alone would do. “I wanted to keep him… safe. For Henry.”

Somehow it sounded like a cheap excuse, but Regina knew the blonde believed on that. She, however, was about to answer to that when Emma spoke once more. Her voice slow, still dubious, and Regina considered how difficult could be for her to admit what she was doing, how carefully she tried to construct words Regina knew would not assuage her own grief.

“But she was still your mother. And that matters. Always does.”

Her eyes were wiser now, the green back in full force, peppered with specs of blue and gray. Stormy almost in a way that called forth Regina’s power like a beacon. A feeling, the brunette found, that she wasn’t opposed to.

Their meaning, however, was much more difficult to swallow. It did, it did matter.

She had never truly considered how much of Cora was the persona she had one impersonated, she had transformed into. The ramifications of that far too painful for her to do so. The sheer fear of even looking at herself and consider how much of her she had inherited one she had become awfully familiar on her childhood days. A fear she had dragged well way into adulthood.

Which was maybe the reason why she felt herself stagger and swallow, eyes closing for a moment as she tried to reign on her all of a sudden convoluted thoughts. A flurry of sparks dropping from her fingers, thick and almost liquid as they dissolved back into nothingness. A detail that wasn’t lost on Emma’s. To her credit, however, the blonde didn’t move. Not an inch.

“Does it?” She finally asked, her voice no more than a drop of a weak breeze now, barely loud enough to travel between them both. Something that made Regina realize how awfully close they both were from each other. Something that had happened before, sure -flashes of her walking closer to the blonde in the mines flooding her mind in a second- but not like this. Clearing her throat, hot tears burning her tear ducts, Regina tried again, her voice at the brink of breaking in a million pieces. “Does then matter that I also feel relieved?”

Emma said nothing to that, her eyes far too knowing, far too soft. And Regina wanted to scream at her, to hit her, to punch her, so the mounting grief inside her chest could disappear, fizzle like the magic that kept escaping a hold she had been taught to never be weak. And oh, how weak she herself felt, how stupid, how idiotic, for having believed Snow when she had found her in that same vault, barely a few inches away from where now her mother would rest. Forever. A woman who had made her cry and run, who had shaped her, who had sold her, who had twisted her every thought. In who, at the end, she had ended up transforming into.

“It does.”

Emma’s voice startled her, so deep on her thoughts she was but she tried to school her features as the younger woman run a hand through her hair, the movement far too quick, a few rebel strands sticking out in odd angles.

“I’m also sorry for believing that you could have killed Archie. I told you once that I didn’t think you were the Queen. I should have…  I should have heard you. Listened to.”

The apology came, maybe, a little too late but Regina let out a chocked sob.  One Emma definitely heard even if she looked away, feigning to not have to.

“I’m… going to leave you alone.” She spoke again, pointing at the distant fence that separated the cemetery from the rest of the grounds. There, her car glimmered under the sun. “I only… wanted to check on you.”

She turned, hands back into her pockets, shoulders hunched and if Regina would have been different, would have been the woman she had loved and feared, that she had wanted dead and alive at the same time, she would have taken that opportunity to strike. She, however, wasn’t. And it was precisely because of that why she called, her voice high, pitch a poor reminiscent of a younger version of her own self. One Emma had never met. And would never do.

It was maybe the first time she mourned that other girl in a very long time.

“Thank you.” She said, and even if she couldn’t say no more she knew there, on her words, very much like on Emma’s, there was another conversation hiding between each vowel and consonant.

Emma merely nodded, back still turned, before she resumed her walking, slowly.

And Regina… Regina was left alone once more. To her thoughts, to her grief. To a gentle warmth that pushed the hot need for revenge to a dark corner of her mind.

_“You would have been enough.”_


End file.
